In the mobile arena there are two big names looking down on everyone else and they’re Apple and Samsung. When it comes to Android however, there’s no doubt that Samsung is far and away the big leader, taking the Lion’s share of the market for themselves and showing everyone else how to market devices effectively. While they might have had a 24% drop in profits during Q2, and increasing competition from the likes of LG is piling on the pressure, it’s clear that Samsung is still doing remarkably well, especially when talking about their mobile division. They’re doing so well in fact, that in South Korea, the Mobile Division’s head was the highest paid CEO in South Korea during Q2.
A report from South Korean research firm, Chaebul ran a report which took a look at the earnings of 190 corporate executives from Q2 in South Korea and found that Samsung Mobile’s, Shin Jong-kyun, earned more than anyone else during the first half of this year. That’s including an 83% drop on his earnings from Q1 of this year as well. Shin earned 11.3 Billion Won during Q2, of which 864 Million Won was his salary and 1.4 billion won in incentives and 9.1 billion won in special bonuses and other benefits. This dwarfs the majority of CEOs from the mobile sector in the country and even makes the 4.9 Billion Won earnings of Hyundai’s Chairman, Chung Mong-koo.
While it’s clear that Samsung needs to think a little differently if they want their growth to continue – taking a quarter-drop in profits year-over-year isn’t good news to anyone – it’s obvious the company has a lot of money to play around with. This also goes to show just how important Samsung is to South Korea’s economy, being able to move such massive amounts of money around – Samsung’s chief of device solutions, Kwon Oh-hyun, came in second earning 5.4 Billion Won – can only mean good things for South Korea on the whole.